Gunshot

Last weekend, I heard the closest gunshot I've ever heard in the city.

It was really close. Less than a block away or so? It didn't sound like someone was shooting off of our porch, but it was close enough to reverberate. And it was definitely a gunshot; I grew up with guns, I've got a cousin who spent most of high school training for the Junior Olympic shooting team, and a gaggle of brothers, a dad, grandfathers and uncles who are enthusiastic outdoorsmen. Part of turning twelve at my house meant being taken to hunter's safety classes with the PA Game Wardens. (Which, by the way, instilled a healthy respect for firearms and wildlife management, but due to the most frighting educational video in the world, also years of nightmares about getting lost and hyperthermic in the woods. Kids, tell people where you are going, when you'll be back, bring a snack,  a whistle, fire-starting equipment, and a black plastic bag! I still do.)

And so, I know it was a gun, not a backfire, not a firework. And not shooting a celebratory clip into the air after a sports victory, like we sometimes heard on H Street and have heard here. Just one, really close shot. I looked out the window, but didn't see anything, and then a few minutes later a cop car slowly trolled by. Silence.

Maybe I should be more frightened, but really, I was just unsettled and reflective. Until I moved into DC, my experience with guns has been mostly "gun as tool" -- a dangerous tool, but so are power saws and pickup trucks. Guns in the city are tools, too, but they seem to be tools for intimidation and violence. Which really, really bothers me.

I'm still wondering how to respond, but the one thing I know I can do is get to know my neighbors to the best of my ability. Even though the ones that have seen me must think I'm a crazy person; wearing clergy blacks and seven months pregnant, most days I feel like the walking punchline to an unfunny joke. But slowly, we're working on getting to know our neighbors by name. And I was delighted when Husband sent me this article in The Atlantic which backs up what we had figured intuitively: that knowing your neighbors matters in ways that cause invisible ripple effects for good.

Free Learning, Free Fun

A few months ago, I wrote a post about a Knowledge Commons DC class and the act of re-creation and recreation. I really enjoyed the class that I took, and the more that I looked into the organization, the more that I discovered that I shared a common philosophy with KCDC: everyone is a student, everyone is a teacher, and everywhere is a classroom.

So I decided that if they took my proposal, I'd teach at the next batch of classes. Happily, they did, and Discovering and Writing the Spiritual Memoir is going to happen at St. Thomas' Dupont Circle on September 15th, at 6:30. If you're interested, I hope you can make it. If you're not interested in that particularly, hopefully you'll take a class on how to photograph airplanes at Gravelly Point, learn some Welsh, or take an abandoned schoolhouse bike tour, among dozens of other classes. More classes will be posted soon for the September session, so be sure to check back.

Another quick note: KCDC is always looking for places to hold classes, so if you belong to (or run) a church or another public space, and are interested in sharing, let me know. St. Thomas' Dupont Circle and St. George's U Street are already in on the action and are getting ready to welcome new friends through their doors.

DCPS Beautification Day!

August 23rd is DCPS's Beautification Day -- I'll be at Miner Elementary School, come join me!

No seriously. If you don't have plans and you'd like to sign up, you can do so here, and if you want to walk over together, message me. Maybe we'll all go get lunch afterwards.

Linden Place Cleanup

Tomorrow is Linden Place Cleanup, organized by our neighborhood association.  We'll be sweeping, pulling weeds, cleaning out drains, and if I get to Home Depot this afternoon, I'll be replanting the flowers from this post. (I did mention that they might die... well, the heat last week finished them off.)

9:00am-2:00pm, drop in, drop out. If you have them, bring gloves and tools. The more, the merrier, and it's fun to work together. I'll be doing this sort of workout in lieu of yoga. Hope to see you there!

Favors

I've been doing some thinking about the Post's coverage of a recent study on civic health in the District. Some of the indices bemuse me, such as the 72.4% of Washingtonians who have "some or a great deal of confidence in the media," because, I'm presuming, 72.4% of the District works in Media, or the 46% who "talk about politics frequently."  One in five Washingtonians have contacted a public official. Yup, that's kind of what we do here in Washington.

But some of the data, as the Post points out, is troubling. There's a lot of distrust -- only one in three people trust some or all of their neighbors, as well as a lot of reticence to ask for help, as only one in ten people regularly exchange favors with their neighbors.

I'm not going to turn this into a preachy post about how we should all get to know our neighbors, and actually talk to them, and if we did this, everything would be awesome. Nope. I understand high turnover in buildings and neighborhoods, the transitoriness of your twenties, the busyness of your thirties, and the ever-present crush of work that tends to overrule our lives here. Keeping up with all of your neighbors, only to have them move in three months, is exhausting and unfeasible. Should you know and trust at least some of them? Absolutely. But all of them? No, that's a superhuman effort. Instead, I'm more interested in the other part -- regularly exchanging favors with a neighbor. And not for the reason you might think.

Giving favors is great. You feel good about yourself, and you feel useful. But I think it's incredibly important to ask for favors. Apart from the political sort, it seems to me that Washington hates asking for favors. (And not even much of that's being done these days.) Asking for help, even for little things, is hard, because it implies that you aren't entirely in control of your life. It implies that you can't do it all yourself, that beneath your professional and polished veneer, you are human. And to be human means that we need to be vulnerable and ask for help sometimes. And that's not only okay, it's actually a good thing.

This spring, I was walking my dog when I discovered that I had locked myself out of the house. Husband wouldn't be home for at least another hour, maybe more. Okay, I thought, I'll just hang out here on the stoop. But then it started to rain. And it was getting kind of cold. So I called one of my neighbors that I sort of knew well, and I awkwardly explained what happened. "Come over, and bring the dog!" he said. So I did. And we drank a bottle of wine, and we laughed, and I got to know him even better, and now we're real friends, because instead of sitting outside in the rain, shivering, I owned up to what a dork I actually was and asked for a favor.

If not many people in Washington are exchanging favors, it means that not many people are asking for them. And that's too bad, because who knows what can grow if we could all started showing a little bit more of our human side.

Beautifying God's Earth

Trinidad --  July 11, 2014

While I don't agree with "Get a life loser" the sentiment is otherwise lovely.

[Text: Whoever keeps stealing my plants / you will not stop me from beautifying God's earth. Get a life, loser!]

DC Pride and Parenting

This weekend was DC Pride. St. Thomas' had a picnic, and afterwards we went to a parishioner's front porch to drink sangria and watch the parade. The sheer length and volume were astounding. The parade lasted from 4:30 until after 7:00, with every sort of float imaginable. It seemed like every politician in the city had marchers, as well as every major Christian denomination, some rogue Mormons, and some Jewish marchers. (My favorite sign of the entire religious contingent: Shabbat Shalom, Queers!) The spirit of campy irreverence and love reigned. The parade was also surprisingly commercial, with banks and hotels sponsoring floats. Chipotle won hands down for best corporate float, with a cowboy riding on a bucking burrito. Usually I don't like seeing a lot of corporate sponsorship in a community event like this, but it was a sign of just how far the gay rights movement has come. Everybody had a good time, except for maybe the protesters, who had to have a police escort for their own safety.

This weekend was also a baptism for a baby in our congregation, a beautiful little girl adopted by a married gay couple. Both parents are pillars in our community, part of who we are, and it was a joy to be a part of that baptism, knowing full well that child will grow to maturity in grace and love within a Christian community. And is she ever loved!

Now, I could write a book about everything that St. Thomas' has taught me, but perhaps the most surprising and lovely lesson of all has been about what it means to be a parent. This lesson began two years ago with one of our first gay adoptions, as I watched two men raise a baby up close for the first time. And it blew my little Central Pennsylvania mind.

First of all, in a same-gendered parenting team, there's no "default" parent. If the baby starts crying, in church or in the middle of the night, it's not automatically handed off to the mother. These parents actually have a conversation about it, and work out a plan. Over and over again, I've seen them take turns and work together to solve the problem. It seems simple, but it makes all the difference in the world. And for same-gendered parents, nothing about parenting seems to be taken for granted. Every child in each of these relationships has been longed for, waited on, hoped for, greeted with tears and joy. This isn't always the case on the other side of the fence, as babies of straight couples sometimes accidentally make their way into the world, unplanned and taken on a burden instead of a blessing. Lastly, I've seen a great deal of imagination and humor in the act of parenting. It's almost as if the joy spilled out and into creativity and laughter.

I'm not saying gay parenting is intrinsically better, or that straight parents can't also be parents who are great at communicating and who are excited and ready to be creative parents. But I know when it's time for us to start thinking that direction, I'll be thinking about my gay and lesbian brothers and sisters, and taking a page out of their parenting book.

Bomb Threats

It was an interesting morning for H Street. While I had left the apartment at 7:30 to get to Alexandria by 8:00, I got a text at 8:00 or so from Husband. "Bomb threat on H, whole street closed between 13th and Maryland." Oh. Ok.

You haven't heard anything about it on the news, because it wasn't covered by the news. Twitter users, mostly @dcvet and @azarrella as well as the @DCPoliceDept, were the only sources of information. Several businesses were evacuated, including AtlasVet (who continued to see patients even though they couldn't get into their building.) The bomb squad was called, and the package cleared. Thankfully, other than a few flashing lights and inconvenient rush hour detour for some, the morning passed uneventfully. Better safe than sorry.

But it's one of those moments that makes you reflect on the risks of living in DC, in the shadow of the Capitol building. I thought about those risks a lot the week of the Navy Yard shootings, too.  It's just that when there's a bomb threat, or an active shooter, or the Capitol is evacuated because of a car chase, you are acutely aware of how much trust it requires to live where we live. It's an act of trust to believe that first responders will respond, an act of trust that your neighbors will help you if you need them, an act of trust that people won't go around blowing things up or gassing us, an act of trust that you won't get caught in the crossfire of DC's gun violence problem. Even if it's an unthinking trust, it's still an act of trust. We depend on each other more than we know, and for the most part, we live up to the trust placed in us. I take heart in that.

Greetings from Bushwick!

The Vicar went to visit the very awesome St. Lydia's Dinner Church in Brooklyn, and is spending the day wandering around Bushwick until she gets back on her Megabus to DC. She feels a little out of place because she doesn't have high-waisted acid-washed skinny jeans or an overly graphic t-shirt, but she's going to be okay.

Anyway, St. Lydia's was found to be a beautiful expression of what the church outside of church walls can become: a group of people, some churched, and some not, who come together over a meal to bless the meal, each other, and their time. There was beautiful singing, prayer, storytelling, good food, conversation and laughter. Who could ask for anything more? 

The Worst

Don't let his excessive cuteness fool you.
The Vicar's Dog - Fall 2013

My dog is consistently the worst dog at the dog park.

This is true for a variety of reasons: he's possessive, he's territorial, he's aggressive towards bigger dogs, he tries to dominate same-sized or smaller dogs, he's not particularly interested in being social, and he doesn't understand when other dogs are trying to play with him. He doesn't chase or wrestle, he just stares at them. I figured out that he was going to be a handful when at four months and maybe fifteen pounds we went to a nearby dog park and he took a chunk of fur out of a full-grown husky's neck. With this sort of bravery/idiocy, I fully expect this dog to go out in a blaze of glory, saving us from a bear or a cougar on a camping trip. Or not even saving us, really, probably just feeling like that bear was in his personal space.

My dog is consistently the worst dog on the block.

He always wants to urinate at exactly the wrong time and at the wrong places, even as we're pulling him away from the "please curb your dog" signs. We can't let kids pet him, or dogs larger than him sniff him, because he's unpredictable. He barks every single time a FedEx or UPS truck pulls up, which is several times a day. He goes nuts when the mail carrier comes up our street, and he goes absolutely bananas when the mail goes in the slot. Part of the problem here is that he is so over-excited about guarding our house from mail that he gets hit in the face with the mail everyday, which probably feeds the cycle of him hating the mail and then barking aggressive at the mail slot. And then he barks at the mail carrier for another five minutes when he sees her across the street. 

He's just the worst. 

I don't want it to sound like he has zero redeeming qualities, but living in a neighborhood is more difficult for us because of this unfriendly dog. Part of the problem is that it can be hard to get a conversation going because he's going nuts at the end of his leash, which kind of deadens the mood. I know he must be obnoxious as our neighbors walk by the house. We have to lock him in the bedroom when people come over.  We leave the dog park as soon as he becomes problematic, which can be less than ten minutes, depending on his level of anxiety that day.

There's only one good thing in all of this, and that is I get to see little pieces of grace strewn around. Every day, this dog, despite our best efforts, somehow or someway causes us to transgress via noise or other dog insanity against our neighbors. And we are indebted to them to forgive us our dog trespasses. For the most part, and I find this to be continually miraculous, they do. I'm very grateful. 

On the Page and on the Stage

The Atlas Performing Arts Center - October 2013

I'm very excited to announce something very exciting!

A few weeks ago, I announced an upcoming feature of The Vicar of H Street: a (still) yet-to-be named oral history feature, in the style of Studs Terkel.  As grace would have it, word about this project made its way over to the Atlas Performing Arts Center, where it was brought to the attention of one of the artistic directors there, who contacted me about the project. We had a wonderful and fruitful conversation. If all goes well, the stories collected for the blog will be adapted into a theatrical performance for the Atlas's Intersections Festival in February of 2015! This is a great opportunity to help the stories of the neighborhood be preserved and (re)incorporated into the life of the community, especially as we stand at a juncture in the history of this neighborhood. I'm delighted to be included in their mission to "make the Atlas a center of community conversation."

During the last few weeks, when I haven't been running around with Holy Week or Easter, I've been working on getting the word out, finding participants, and arranging times for interviews. I still need many more people though, from a broader spectrum of the H Street experience. 

If you would like to participate, or have a lead (I would especially like to hear from some of our elderly neighbors -- a personal introduction to them would be irreplaceable) please contact me at vicarofhstreet@gmail.com. I would love to hear from you!

Spring!

Spring is finally, finally here, despite the cold weather for the next few days. I'm ridiculously grateful, and spent last weekend sprucing up our very limited outside spaces: our balcony, and the little front lot.

And the front lot was disgusting. I wish I had remembered to take a "before" picture, but imagine a scraggly bunch of mostly dead ivy spilling out a foot onto the sidewalk. When I cut away the ivy, I had to scoop years worth of dead and decaying leaves which had turned into soil, and when I started digging up the dead roots, I found a beer bottle, a crushed aluminum can (for malt liquor), a small collection of plastic number stickers that used to adorn the front of our house, a little girl's hair barrette, some wire, and innumerable shards of window glass. I felt like a very short-term archaeologist, discovering pieces of the recent past.

After the ground was cleared, I mixed in some fertilizer, dug a few holes and put some pansies in, knowing that they're a hardy bunch and could probably handle whatever comes their way this summer, despite the damaged soil. The last step was mulching around them. Mulching is always really satisfying, not only because mulch keeps the moisture in when the weather gets hot, but because it always makes what you do look way more professional than it actually is, as in, look how much better these crappy pansies I bought for four dollars look now. (By the way, the garden center on West Virginia and New York is way cheaper than the Home Depot.)

The Vicar's "front yard" April 12, 2014

The difference between what was once there, a scraggly, smelly mess, and what is now there, something that helps the neighborhood look and be better than what it was, is not in money (it cost less than $15 for the materials) or in time (it really only took two hours) or in talent (clearly, my flower bed design is lacking in genius). The difference is intentionality. Intentionality is greeting your neighbor when you see her in the street -- it doesn't cost money, and it doesn't take that much time. Intentionality is paying attention to how your actions affect those around you. Intentionality is seeing, with new eyes, the potential of what's in a person, not what's presenting on the surface, and interacting with that person based on their potential, not their ugliness. In the end, intentionality is the difference between a group of people who live in the same geographic area, and a community.

We'll see how this little flower bed grows. Maybe the frost, or the heat, or my dog, or something else will kill off the pansies. That would be too bad, but if they don't make it, that's okay. I'll just plant something else.

Twenty Years

Twenty years ago, yesterday, was the beginning of the Rwandan genocide. I was eight when it happened; I knew Africa existed, but only in a lion, zebra and elephant sort of way. Bill Clinton was the president. But this week, I just can't stop thinking about what happened twenty years ago.

You might not think that this has a lot to do with H Street, but it does. It does because the waves of suffering that systemic violence cause radiate to every corner of the world, and sets off ricochets of suffering for decades, perhaps centuries. So, even though I was an eight year old, blithely living my life when those atrocities happened, as an adult, I've seen the ricochets of the genocide slash through lives here in Washington. And while they are a pale shadow of the immediate violence, they weren't pretty.

After college I worked at an anti-torture non-profit which had two basic tasks: advocate against the use of political torture by the US government, and offer immediate help to survivors of torture. Often, people would just show up at our door with their every possession in a plastic shopping bag. It was a miracle they found us at all, tucked away in a hard to reach spot in NE DC, but they did. TASSC was and still is a small operation, but we did our best to help them find proper psychological care, pro bono lawyers, and a safe place to stay. Petitioning for political asylum is its own sort of hell, as it can take years, and involves telling your story over and over again -- the very story you are trying to move past. Not to mention the difficulties inherent in coming to a new country with nothing. All of a sudden you can't speak the language, the culture makes no sense, and you find yourself impoverished and disempowered, unable to work for fear of being deported back to the country that tortured you.

And so the survivors came, from all around the world. The old-timers who stopped by to check in from time to time were mostly Latin Americans, but we would get new survivors every week, often from different countries in Africa or the Middle East. Most plentiful were those from the horn of Africa, Ethiopians and Eritreans, well connected in DC, and often sent to us by their clergy. There were others from Cameroon, Mali, Nigeria, the Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, the Congo, the Sudan, speaking of TASSC by word of mouth, each connecting to one another when they somehow made it to DC. 

Every survivors has his or her own story, but each country's violence had its own distinctive stamp on the survivors. Those who shared the same language, who grew up in the same culture, and who endured similar treatment had a bond that went beyond even the deepest trust issues. Again and again I was amazed by the compassion and courage of survivors, especially as they worked to help each other out, listening to each other, offering space in their already crowded apartments. Despite the ugly reason that survivors found themselves at TASSC, the human spirit and grace was palpable. 

The exception to this rule were the Rwandans. Not that they didn't also evince spirit and grace in their own way, but because the violence came from within their own communities, and not from an outside force in the shape of a autocratic government, the devastation of the soul was far more complete. Instead of finding hope and solidarity, these survivors feared other people who shared their culture, who shared their language, who shared their identity. Not only did they have to deal with the "normal" issues survivors face, but they had to deal with that, too. The Rwandans broke my heart. At least to me -- and what do I know?-- it always seemed as though that the genocide survivors were the ones we were least able to help. And these people, and the children of these people, continue to live with the fallout of what happened twenty years ago. Because DC is a city of the world, they live here,  too, among us who never knew such trauma, bearing the scars on their hearts, living with the ricochets of the violence. 

Ash Wednesday

Dupont Circle South Metro Entrance, March 5, 2014

Today is Ash Wednesday. Ash Wednesday is the first day of Lent, and a day that Christians have traditionally observed by going into church and having ashes smudged on their forehead to remind them of their own mortality. Today, though, I donned my cassock and joined many of my clergy friends in the Episcopal Diocese of Washington in getting out of the church and going to where the people actually are: metro stops, busy sidewalks, coffee shops. I was graced with questions, conversations, tears, prayers, and real contact with real people, making their way in the world. 

Brushing the hair away from their forehead, and looking into their eyes, this is what we said: "You are a beloved child of God. Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return."

Simple. True. Lovely.

Open Books, Open Minds

The Northeast Library re-opened on Monday (covered by the DCist). There’ll even be a grand opening party on Saturday from 10:00am-4:00pm if you have time to drop by. I haven’t gone to see the inside yet, but I look forward to going and getting my first DC public library card sometime this week, and nosing around the building. 

Northeast Branch of the DC Public Library System
D&7 NE   Feb. 3, 2014

There’s always been something really magical to me about a library. It’s not just the books, I have far too many books at home. Nor is it the amount of information held in one building, because in this day and age, the supercomputer in my pocket holds exponentially more information than any one building ever could. Going to a community library seems to be more than just books or information. Rather, what I love about it seems to rest on the public side of the public library -- it’s public, it’s of the people. When you go to the library, you engage in a shared ritual of hushed sacredness surrounding the seeking and sharing of knowledge. First the trip to the catalog, the scribbling of some esoteric code, then hunting silently among the stacks, following the rubrics on the walls, reading the signs pointing to what you seek. Mumbling the decimal system under your breath like an unarticulated prayer, pulling the books and rifling through them, sometimes meeting dead ends, sometimes meeting an epiphany. Although entirely secular, there is a liturgy to the library, and in the liturgy and silence, in the wonder and curiosity, the library seems a holy space. 

In this reverence of the seeking and sharing of knowledge, perhaps I'm more akin to Bill Nye over Ken Ham in last night's debate at the Creationism Museum in Kentucky, but that's good. I believe that truth does, and will, set you free. But where we find that truth, be it science, or philosophy, or relationships, or religion, doesn't matter to me.

So go visit your library.

Becoming Invisible in Your Own Neighborhood

Yesterday, Morning Edition put out a story about how the process of gentrification might actually be beneficial to those who have always lived in the neighborhood, and they focused on H Street. This isn't too surprising that NPR chose H Street, given their new headquarters only a few blocks away, but regardless, I was heartened by the news that by moving to H Street I wasn’t kicking somebody’s grandmother out into the cold.

The article explores how the process of gentrification improves parks, schools and other amenities. That isn’t exactly newsworthy, in and of itself. But NPR went on to look at new studies which seems to imply that not only do long-time residents stay in the gentrified neighborhoods, there are many other side benefits, including better credit scores, new jobs, and a safer environment.

If this is true, it’s good news. What’s puzzling to me is why it doesn’t seem to be true. The social scientists were just as surprised as I am. They were gathering data to see how much displacement gentrification caused, but instead they found gentrification increased retention, and they were shocked. They must have been shocked because when gentrification happens, it doesn't seem like the people who lived there before are still there. 

This is what troubles me: If the people who have always lived in the neighborhood are still here and present, why does it seem as though the people who lived here before have been displaced? What has changed so much in newly gentrified community that it seems as though the people who lived there before have suddenly become invisible? Are our social groups so totally closed off, with different hang out spots, different work and life schedules, that they never overlap in meaningful ways? 

And if we are actually so isolated that we never see or interact with each other, what is it that would make our neighborhood a neighborhood, not just a ZIP code?

PS If you have thoughts on this -- why it seems like people aren't there anymore -- please leave them in the comments, I am genuinely curious!

The "Death" of a Church

A church very close to where I live was just sold for $2.2M to developers. I'm not sure what the deal is, or why the church decided to sell. Perhaps they are taking the money and starting a new ministry somewhere else; perhaps they are moving somewhere else in the neighborhood; perhaps the community slowly died, and the building was only a shell of what the community used to be. I work elsewhere in the city on Sunday mornings, so I haven't been around to see whether or not there are active church services there or not. A reasonable amount of internet snooping led to no new information, and so I'm left with my conjectures.

A few neighborhood blogs have covered the announcement, most notably Frozen Tropics and HStreetGreatStreet. This is the former church of St. John Church of God, if you're wondering which one:

St. John Church of God, Jan. 21, 2014, H&13

Near the front steps:

The former St. John Church of God, Jan. 21, 2014

The chain and lock seem just a little heartbreaking to this Vicar, and when I peered in the front doors, the door to the sanctuary was open, revealing the pews and "Do this in remembrance" lettered on the altar and all the little things that make a regular building a church, hymnals in the pews and signs to the bathroom and bulletin boards with outdated announcements no one has bothered to take down. I found myself a little sad for this little church.

But. Church buildings shouldn't be museums of places where people used to gather in faith but now sit empty. Church buildings shouldn't burden their congregants to the point where all they do is maintain the building and neglect their mission. Church buildings shouldn't exist just for the sake of existing. The building of the church isn't the church, the building is just a place for the people who make up the church to use as a tool for mission. And if that building is getting in the way of the church doing what the church should actually be doing, it needs to go. Period.

I'm not saying that the church building can't be the center of gravity for a community, or a place of sacred reflection that feeds the souls of those who come to worship there. But if the building itself becomes the object of worship, it needs to go. I wonder how many hundreds of thousands of faith communities could be set free if only they could get rid of the idol that is their church building. I wonder what these communities would discover about themselves, about their priorities, about their faith, if they were willing to set out on an adventure, to see their building as a tool for doing ministry in the world around them.

So, on further reflection, I'm not sad for the community, or that little church building, of St. John Church of God. Good for them for going out on faith and moving on, in whatever direction they are taking.

How I got to H Street, Part I: On the Insanity of "Calling"

A "calling" is a funny thing. The first funny thing about a "calling" is the term itself; it's the Christian terminology for the idea of a vocation,* but vocation with fangs. I say with fangs, because if it's a calling, it won't leave you alone, it will keep you up at night, it will go away for a little while and then come back with a later and say, at first very sweetly, "Listen. Stop running. You know you were created to do this." If you keep ignoring it, then it gets a little louder. And a little louder. Until one day, you can't ignore it anymore, and you say, "FINE." And despite the pain that comes with change, you wonder why you hadn't been doing it all along.

Everyone has a calling; I believe that firmly, because I've seen what happens when people follow a calling. Callings aren't just for the professionally religious, but are, at heart, a human experience. Some people get their callings young; some people get them when they are middle-aged; some people only find them at the completion of their lives. To believe that people are called to a purpose is audacious because it implies 1) that there is an order to the universe, albeit a creative, creating one and 2) that you were intentionally created the way that you are, because 3) your presence is a gift to the world. To believe in these three premises, and then to believe that what you do really matters, is insane. But I believe it anyway. I believe it because I've seen, in others, a calling that brings love and joy to the world like a ticker tape parade. I believe it because I've seen, in others, a calling that brings love and joy to the world in the quiet of a conversation, a healing touch, an imparted inspiration.

I make no claims about my own ability to bring love or joy in any capacity, but what I can claim is that callings are crazy, and sometimes not at all what you think it would be. I know, because it happened to me. If you would have asked me, going into seminary, what my calling was, I would have told you it was probably not in a church, it was probably going to be in an academic setting. As such, I took New Testament Greek for the whole year. As such, I decided that I would start taking upper-level New Testament classes my first semester of seminary. As such, I took an entire semester class on the letter to the Galatians, reading hundreds of pages weekly on six chapters of scripture. As such, swimming in the Greek and the historicity and the apocalyptic antinomies and the Hebrew Scripture references, my mind was opened in a way it wasn't before. As such, for the first time in a very long time, my tiny black raisin heart (atrophied by intellectualizing everything I touched) cracked open. Just a little bit. But it was enough to let that little bit of a whisper of something new come in.

And so, by the time I graduated, taking more and more Scripture and translation classes, thinking that they were still the answer to my calling, yet every single one nudging me more into a new way to be, my calling had shifted. I had been called, at least for the foreseeable future, into a new adventure that was not more school. I couldn't just read Paul anymore to read Paul, and I couldn't study the Gospels just to study the Gospels, and to sound knowledgeable about theory. What Paul had to say, what the Gospels had to say, is radical and life changing and nothing at all like the namby-pamby Precious Moments pious BS that gets marketed to well-meaning middle America. It's also not merely an intellectual exercise in the history of thought. It's way more than that, and I had been caught up with it.

*Side etymology note: vocation actually comes from the Latin vocare, 'to call,' so this whole thing is more wrapped up in tautology than I had originally intended, but the definition stands.

Swampoodle

I've made a huge mistake. I could have been the Vicar of Swampoodle! What a missed opportunity.

Seriously, though, I was looking up a restaurant that I had a Groupon to (which, btw, is now closed, and I have no idea if I can get my money back) when I noticed something peculiar.

Right there, in the middle. Swampoodle. Swampoodle? What the heck is Swampoodle? 

So, I do what any self-respecting person does, and I google it. Turns out that it's a real neighborhood in DC, although it's not at all what it once was. According to Wikipedia, anyway, it was an Irish neighborhood of slums that had Tiber Creek (a whole creek! where did the creek go?) running through it that would overflow and create huge puddles. In case you haven't already, this is the point where you should try to say "puddle" with an Irish accent. Anyway, the neighborhood was rife with crime, but still a busy and vibrant neighborhood (with a baseball stadium that seated 6,000!) until it was cut in two by the construction of Union Station in 1907, after which the residents dispersed into the city. Now nothing is left except a few original houses on the outskirts of the neighborhood and a mostly-forgotten name. It reminds me of how easily distinct and multi-generational communities can fade away, even if it is in the name of "progress."

And so, Swampoodle is now "NoMa." I guess living North of Massachusettes Avenue is better than saying you live in a Swamp Puddle, but NoMa sounds so sterile in comparison.

Craving Stability

Like any other twenty-something who has moved from a small town to a big city, the last ten years of my life have been constant flux. The last year has been particularly acute, which is probably why I've been thinking about it so much, but seriously. I've moved countless times, changed my state residency twice, went to school, graduated from school, transitioned into full-time work, changed jobs, transitioned within the job, went back to school, graduated from school, transitioned back into work, transitioned from single to married, transitioned from a lay person to an ordained person, transitioned in my family relationships, and watched most of my friends move through the same process, just with their own constellations of constant change. 

(As a side note, the Church in general does not do a good job ministering to people who are in constant change. This is another blog post entirely.)

Maybe I'm getting older, but this starting to be exhausting. Not that the flux isn't fun, it is a time of intense personal growth, but I'm ready to inhabit a new way of being now, to find a center in the chaos. I am more than ready for some stability, and weirdly, I've been thinking about monks.

In monastic orders, there are three basic vows: poverty, chastity, and obedience. But some orders (orders are specific types of monks or nuns, each order has a different ministry or focus) have additional vows. One of those vows is stability. When a person takes a vow of stability, that person vows to remain with one community for the rest of his or her life, come what may. It doesn't matter if the community gets a bunch of new people that a monk doesn't like, he's staying, and they will grow together. It doesn't matter if a nun is facing uncomfortable truths about herself because of what is happening in that community, she's staying, and she will grow because of it. The vow of stability takes away the autonomy to just move on, and instead fosters a trust that together, a community can flourish. 

While I won't be taking any monastic vows anytime soon, I'm looking forward to being in one place for the foreseeable future, and look to the monastic tradition for assurance that this longer-term transition is really for the best. I do find it odd that I'm finding that "one place" in a place of constant change and motion and businesses opening and closing, a constant and changing tide of people throughout the day and week, but hey. At least I know it won't be boring around here. I'm thinking this experience will be less like laying a foundation, and more like casting an anchor over the side of the boat. But regardless, I hope that 2014 is the beginning of the rest of the twenty-teens for me.